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The Duration in Office
of the Executive

To the People of the State of New York:

DURATION in office has been mentioned as the second requisite to
the energy of the Executive authority. This has relation to two
objects: to the personal firmness of the executive magistrate, in
the employment of his constitutional powers; and to the stability
of the system of administration which may have been adopted under
his auspices. With regard to the first, it must be evident, that
the longer the duration in office, the greater will be the
probability of obtaining so important an advantage. It is a general
principle of human nature, that a man will be interested in
whatever he possesses, in proportion to the firmness or
precariousness of the tenure by which he holds it; will be less
attached to what he holds by a momentary or uncertain title, than
to what he enjoys by a durable or certain title; and, of course,
will be willing to risk more for the sake of the one, than for the
sake of the other. This remark is not less applicable to a
political privilege, or honor, or trust, than to any article of
ordinary property. The inference from it is, that a man acting in
the capacity of chief magistrate, under a consciousness that in a
very short time he MUST lay down his office, will be apt to feel
himself too little interested in it to hazard any material censure
or perplexity, from the independent exertion of his powers, or from
encountering the ill-humors, however transient, which may happen to
prevail, either in a considerable part of the society itself, or
even in a predominant faction in the legislative body. If the case
should only be, that he MIGHT lay it down, unless continued by a
new choice, and if he should be desirous of being continued, his
wishes, conspiring with his fears, would tend still more powerfully
to corrupt his integrity, or debase his fortitude. In either case,
feebleness and irresolution must be the characteristics of the
station.

There are some who would be inclined to regard the servile
pliancy of the Executive to a prevailing current, either in the
community or in the legislature, as its best recommendation. But
such men entertain very crude notions, as well of the purposes for
which government was instituted, as of the true means by which the
public happiness may be promoted. The republican principle demands
that the deliberate sense of the community should govern the
conduct of those to whom they intrust the management of their
affairs; but it does not require an unqualified complaisance to
every sudden breeze of passion, or to every transient impulse which
the people may receive from the arts of men, who flatter their
prejudices to betray their interests. It is a just observation,
that the people commonly INTEND the PUBLIC GOOD. This often applies
to their very errors. But their good sense would despise the
adulator who should pretend that they always REASON RIGHT about the
MEANS of promoting it. They know from experience that they
sometimes err; and the wonder is that they so seldom err as they
do, beset, as they continually are, by the wiles of parasites and
sycophants, by the snares of the ambitious, the avaricious, the
desperate, by the artifices of men who possess their confidence
more than they deserve it, and of those who seek to possess rather
than to deserve it. When occasions present themselves, in which the
interests of the people are at variance with their inclinations, it
is the duty of the persons whom they have appointed to be the
guardians of those interests, to withstand the temporary delusion,
in order to give them time and opportunity for more cool and sedate
reflection. Instances might be cited in which a conduct of this
kind has saved the people from very fatal consequences of their own
mistakes, and has procured lasting monuments of their gratitude to
the men who had courage and magnanimity enough to serve them at the
peril of their displeasure.

But however inclined we might be to insist upon an unbounded
complaisance in the Executive to the inclinations of the people, we
can with no propriety contend for a like complaisance to the humors
of the legislature. The latter may sometimes stand in opposition to
the former, and at other times the people may be entirely neutral.
In either supposition, it is certainly desirable that the Executive
should be in a situation to dare to act his own opinion with vigor
and decision.

The same rule which teaches the propriety of a partition between
the various branches of power, teaches us likewise that this
partition ought to be so contrived as to render the one independent
of the other. To what purpose separate the executive or the
judiciary from the legislative, if both the executive and the
judiciary are so constituted as to be at the absolute devotion of
the legislative? Such a separation must be merely nominal, and
incapable of producing the ends for which it was established. It is
one thing to be subordinate to the laws, and another to be
dependent on the legislative body. The first comports with, the
last violates, the fundamental principles of good government; and,
whatever may be the forms of the Constitution, unites all power in
the same hands. The tendency of the legislative authority to absorb
every other, has been fully displayed and illustrated by examples
in some preceding numbers. In governments purely republican, this
tendency is almost irresistible. The representatives of the people,
in a popular assembly, seem sometimes to fancy that they are the
people themselves, and betray strong symptoms of impatience and
disgust at the least sign of opposition from any other quarter; as
if the exercise of its rights, by either the executive or
judiciary, were a breach of their privilege and an outrage to their
dignity. They often appear disposed to exert an imperious control
over the other departments; and as they commonly have the people on
their side, they always act with such momentum as to make it very
difficult for the other members of the government to maintain the
balance of the Constitution.

It may perhaps be asked, how the shortness of the duration in
office can affect the independence of the Executive on the
legislature, unless the one were possessed of the power of
appointing or displacing the other. One answer to this inquiry may
be drawn from the principle already remarked that is, from the
slender interest a man is apt to take in a short-lived advantage,
and the little inducement it affords him to expose himself, on
account of it, to any considerable inconvenience or hazard. Another
answer, perhaps more obvious, though not more conclusive, will
result from the consideration of the influence of the legislative
body over the people; which might be employed to prevent the
re-election of a man who, by an upright resistance to any sinister
project of that body, should have made himself obnoxious to its
resentment.

It may be asked also, whether a duration of four years would
answer the end proposed; and if it would not, whether a less
period, which would at least be recommended by greater security
against ambitious designs, would not, for that reason, be
preferable to a longer period, which was, at the same time, too
short for the purpose of inspiring the desired firmness and
independence of the magistrate.

It cannot be affirmed, that a duration of four years, or any
other limited duration, would completely answer the end proposed;
but it would contribute towards it in a degree which would have a
material influence upon the spirit and character of the government.
Between the commencement and termination of such a period, there
would always be a considerable interval, in which the prospect of
annihilation would be sufficiently remote, not to have an improper
effect upon the conduct of a man indued with a tolerable portion of
fortitude; and in which he might reasonably promise himself, that
there would be time enough before it arrived, to make the community
sensible of the propriety of the measures he might incline to
pursue. Though it be probable that, as he approached the moment
when the public were, by a new election, to signify their sense of
his conduct, his confidence, and with it his firmness, would
decline; yet both the one and the other would derive support from
the opportunities which his previous continuance in the station had
afforded him, of establishing himself in the esteem and good-will
of his constituents. He might, then, hazard with safety, in
proportion to the proofs he had given of his wisdom and integrity,
and to the title he had acquired to the respect and attachment of
his fellow-citizens. As, on the one hand, a duration of four years
will contribute to the firmness of the Executive in a sufficient
degree to render it a very valuable ingredient in the composition;
so, on the other, it is not enough to justify any alarm for the
public liberty. If a British House of Commons, from the most feeble
beginnings, FROM THE MERE POWER OF ASSENTING OR DISAGREEING TO THE
IMPOSITION OF A NEW TAX, have, by rapid strides, reduced the
prerogatives of the crown and the privileges of the nobility within
the limits they conceived to be compatible with the principles of a
free government, while they raised themselves to the rank and
consequence of a coequal branch of the legislature; if they have
been able, in one instance, to abolish both the royalty and the
aristocracy, and to overturn all the ancient establishments, as
well in the Church as State; if they have been able, on a recent
occasion, to make the monarch tremble at the prospect of an
innovation1 attempted by them, what would be to be
feared from an elective magistrate of four years' duration, with
the confined authorities of a President of the United States? What,
but that he might be unequal to the task which the Constitution
assigns him? I shall only add, that if his duration be such as to
leave a doubt of his firmness, that doubt is inconsistent with a
jealousy of his encroachments.

PUBLIUS.

[1] This was the case with respect to Mr. Fox's India
bill, which was carried in the House of Commons, and rejected in
the House of Lords, to the entire satisfaction, as it is said, of
the people.